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Rossi takes up world rallying 'hobby'
Last updated at 23:22pm on 15.11.06
Valentino Rossi, the brilliant "clown prince" of MotoGP has recovered from his last-race championship defeat by America's Nicky Hayden and has turned to what he described as his "hobby" – world championship rallying.
It's a pastime that Vale' as Italian tifosi know him, can well afford, raking in an estimated $30million a year from his other-worldly skills on a Grand Prix bike.
On Friday he will be in Hamilton, New Zealand to take on the cream of world rallying over one of the fastest events of the WRC season in his privately-entered Subaru Impreza, painted an intimidating black.
Subaru boss David Richards claimed that Rossi's entry is a great boost for rallying. "In the world of motorsport, this guy is a super-hero. He's got great charisma and great natural ability," he added. "While there's been all the talk about him going to F1, Valentino has always said to us that if he was not in MotoGP, then he wanted to be in rallying.”
The Italian has, of course, tried his hand several times before, with limited success. His best result has been 2nd overall on the asphalt Monza Rally last year, when he beat Colin McRae.
But some fans derided his efforts in local Internet forums, pointing out that McRae had only a year-old Skoda Fabia compared to a state-of-the-art Subaru. "Rossi's Impreza was a rocket compared with everything else present," wrote one Italian.
But rallying's biggest outbreak of Rossi-mania came with his 2002 British outing in a Peugeot 206 WRC when tyre firm Michelin probably spent 250,000 pounds on the entry and a publicity offensive.
Unfortunately, Rossi skidded into a ditch after only 11 miles of Rally GB and was whisked away in tears to his apartment in Knightsbridge, West London. This time the approach is much more low-key. He's kept his head down, saying nothing and testing the car in secret in the UK. Rally New Zealandhas been chosen largely because it's as far as you can get from the European media circus.
Next year Rossi is again committed to Yamaha. But in 2008 he will still be only 28, too old to start a Formula One career maybe, but not for rallying.
If he could make it as a forest racer the sport would certainly benefit from the maverick ways of a man who sports a large gold hoop earring, pink leather trousers and a different coloured racing boot on each foot.
Anyone who has celebrated victories by nipping into a trackside portable toilet, giving victory-lap rides to friends dressed as a chicken and a blow-up doll or mounting the podium at Donington Park dressed as Robin Hood, would shake up what can be a straight-laced sport.
